June Intro: Let's Sea How Far We've Come

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: JUNE

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr as the island of Ziziphus begins to crumble
When: June 4th and onward
Where: Ziziphus and Ensō...and Monsun
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Ziziphus: At The Start Of The End Of The World
Since Bliss's destruction, the extensive root network they've threaded throughout every inch of the island of Ziziphus has begun to crumble. June 4th marks the beginning of the inevitable collapse of the island as it starts to sink into the sea...coincidentally coinciding with the arrival of LifeAftr's newest adventurers. Between the dead trees surrounding Bliss's empty husk, great cracks in the earth start to widen, the dead god's absent root system leaving vast gaps underground which simply cannot support the life above. It almost sounds like thunder rupturing from the ground itself, wild tremors preceding each vicious boom until gaping chasms lay between venturing parties and the safety of the mana pool - only water waits below, for those unlucky enough to lose their footing.

And if the immense pull of mile wide chunks of landmass sinking beneath the waves isn't enough to suck you down, the heavy rain of debris from Ziziphus's rapidly destabilizing edges will certainly help. Want to avoid a watery grave? What you need to do is simple:

Escape.

Sorry, newbies. If you showed up on Ziziphus, you're in for a very athletic entrance to LifeAftr.

Monsun: Just Like Every Other Morning Before
Adventurers aren't the only creatures on Ziziphus attempting to outrun its collapse. Creatures great and small, from the largest spindlank to the smallest tigerlily will be heading south in an attempt to escape the worst of the quakes. Unlike offshore adventurers, however, these poor creatures don't have a mana pool waiting for them to escape through. Their extinction, it seems, is imminent.

Unless you have something to say about it.

Already exhausted from their attempts to get through to and then actively dispose of their fellow god, the Storyteller will break their traditional manner of communication to announce a potential solution to this problem with a single broadcast to the Stones of Far Speech in a strained, weary tone:

"The mana pools on Monsun are now open. If you are willing, save what you can."

True to their word, characters will discover that the island of Monsun will be accessible once more for a short period of time. From prey to predator, obstruction to catastrophe - multiple species of flora and fauna can still be preserved, should you choose to do so.

Be wary of the psychological effects of both sides of the island. Those who are new to our setting and wish to explore, the island of Monsun has a peculiar side effect to its stark divide: the eastern half is rich in resources, but brings out the very worst of you, while the western half is a tumultuous wasteland that accentuates your best qualities. More information on said island can be found on its entry on the Locations page, or its introductory info post.

Due to these efforts, the Storyteller will not be available for contact from the 4th to the 18th of June. Item Requests will also be unavailable at this time. They will, however, make a rather strained announcement to ensure all are aware that access to both Ziziphus and Monsun will cease on June 10th.

Ensō: I Wonder What It Means If It's Gone
The native fauna of Ziziphus aren't the only ones on the move, it seems. Those who wander the shores of Ensō will be delighted to witness the appearance of creatures akin to both turtles and dugongs drifting through the waters, gravitating around the island's eastern coast, rapidly gaining in numbers over the following days.

Kaleidoshells have been unlocked in the bestiary!

With spring close to ending in the archipelago, these peaceful creatures are looking to make good use of their natural nesting areas; hope you're open to sharing the beach for a little while. While a few braver individuals will make their way to the shores between C4 and D1 to begin digging nests, the vast majority won't be coming to shore quite yet.

They do, however, make a very fine sight around the waters of Ensō, especially in the evening. Luminescent, their rainbow patterns glow underwater, drifting mood lights for the increasingly warmer evening breeze.

---

All new arrivals will awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can all be found in your acceptance notices!

As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

---

Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

Yellowfang (happy to match format im just a ho for prose!)

[taxusbacatta]

ENSO- at sea (ONE PERSON ONLY PLEASE, FIRST COME FIRST SERVE)

"Oowwwm! Aooowwwm! Waaoowwwwm!"

A pitiful sound drifted from across the gentle, turtle-filled surf as the small wooden craft, like many before it, bobbed closer and closer to the shore. Its single passenger was no seafarer, she'd hardly even considered the concept of riding-on-a-thing-that-is-in-water until this moment. Needless to say, she was distressed. And there was also the issue of the thing that was entangling her.

Yellowfang was a skinny, shabby grey cat with long fur and a smushed face. Said smushed face was squinched up tight as she dug her untrimmed claws into the wood of her raft and tried to cling to the scraps of the dream she'd left behind as the salty air buffeted her fur. She just couldn't understand it. What had it meant? Who was the Storyteller? What was StarClan trying to say? WHAT WAS THIS BLASTED THING ON HER BACK?

It was a napsack just her size with her name carefully embroidered on the flap. Yellowfang also had no concept of A Backpack so she could not appreciate how useful (or adorable) it was. She just knew there was something on her and it was around her legs and she couldn't get it off but she didn't want to struggle with it too hard because she might fall into the foul-tasting water. As a ShadowClan cat, she was no stranger to getting her feet wet in the marshes but this was something else entirely.



ENSO- ashore, OTA!

Well. That was. Something.

Once she had all four paws firmly on land and had slipped into the foliage, Yellowfang had to take stock of what had happened to her. This was not her forest or anywhere near it. She was so far from home she may as well have been on the underside of a cloud or even further. Yellowfang quietly scolded herself for mewling like a kit back on the raft. She should have more sense than to resort to wailing in the face of something strange and new. It got her onto land and away from that terrifyingly large lake. Whatever.

Yellowfang pushed her whiskers forward as she carefully padded under fronds and ferns, drinking in the plethora of new scents and turning her stubby ears toward every new sound. Almost nothing smelled the same. There was the smell of earth and decaying plants under her paws, but that was where the familiarity ended. The smell of the sea was almost overwhelming. There was the acrid tang of something like a mouse nearby. Unfamiliar birdsong filled the air. The reek of something perhaps distantly kin to a fox at the base of a tree. Oh.

And the smell of Twolegs.

Twolegs everywhere! Their tracks! Their smoke! Their clumsy nests! It felt as though every time Yellowfang slunk between two trees that were too far apart, she could catch sight of their homes in the distance. At least, she thought to herself bitterly, where there are Twolegs there is prey that feed on their garbage. She would have to watch them for some time if she wanted to get her strength up. And, of course, with her being a cat...she was curious.

As she brooded over this, something yanked her backwards and she let out a startled hiss. A low-hanging twig had snagged a string on her napsack. Yellowfang twisted and swatted the bush, only freeing herself in time to hear the sound of something approaching her through the jungle.

She tensed herself up, ready to bolt should she need to.

At Sea

[want_to_belong]

Before Prompto went to Monsun he stopped by the beach to see what he could get. It had been one of several sources of food and other resources, like fronds, so he went there often. The turtles were new, so he was clicking away to get pics when he heard something oddly familiar in the distance.

Befuddled, he glanced around to spot it. That was when he saw something floating towards the shore on a raft.

"Kitty...!"

He hadn't seen a normal looking animal in a while. He'd always loved cats. Filled his camera with pictures of cats and dogs when he was a kid. He strapped it up high to keep it out of the water and pulled off his socks and shoes, leaving those on the shore, and rolled up his pant legs before running in. It'd be hard to take the entire raft, but easy to carry a cat, right?

He waded over excitedly, calling to her as he got closer.

"It's okay, kitty! I'll get you." He cooed as he got to the raft, reaching out to pet her. "You're a pretty kitty, aren't you?"

Honestly, he didn't care that much what she looked like. She was a kitty.

[taxusbacatta]

A voice! Oh, thank StarClan, some cat had heard her.

Then she ran back what that voice had said. Kitty? Well, okay, that was weird. But this was a weird situation. Yellowfang squinted open her rheumy orange eyes and cringed at the sting of the salt air and spray from the waves breaking around her raft.

What she saw wading toward her would have made her back bow up if she wasn't so focused on keeping her grip on the raft. A Twolegs! Out here in this blasted lake! Of course, they were everywhere. Why not here? But the strangest thing was, he was calling to her in cat language just like the Twoleg kit in her dream. This was no dream, she was sure of that. She ached and hungered and was hot from the sun. While her visions had given her feelings before, this felt too real. Too here. Wherever here was.

Yellowfang flattened her ears as Prompto's horrible five-fingered mitt neared her.

"Don't touch me, filthy Twolegs! I'm not some kittypet!"

[want_to_belong]

"Wah!"

Surprise, he stumbled back and fell in the water, ruining his attempts at keeping his clothes dry. It was, fortunately, not too deep where they were, though. Fighting the endless waves, he fumbled his way back to his feet.

"You can talk?!"

He'd met a spider woman and other things, but not just a talking cat.

ashore; i regret many things in my life but i've already decided this will not be one of them

[counterblows]

[It's been a hell of a day already, but Wash, to his credit, has been doing what he can to take it in stride. It's almost a relief to see something familiar - a four-legged shape caught on a bush, and here he has to blink and squint through his visor to make sure he's not hallucinating it, but unless he's mistaken, it seems that this cat has a very small backpack.]

[Meaning she...ostensibly belongs to someone? The cat is an objectively pretty ugly creature, or she would be, if Wash hadn't seen plenty of ferals lurking on the streets of Outer Colony warzones, missing tails and various limbs, and often just as foul-tempered as their roughened exteriors would imply.]

[Either way, Wash mag-clamps his rifle to his back and hunkers down from a distance, eyeing the cat carefully.]

Hey, puss. [His tone is low and soothing, even conversational. He speaks because it's an easy impulse and a grounding one - and certainly not because he expects the cat to actually respond.] I'm gonna give you a little space here, 'cause I think I'm gonna lose an eye if I try to grab you right now. But it looks like you might belong to somebody, so we're gonna take this slow.

[He opens one kevlar-gloved hand, palm up. He doesn't expect the cat to sniff right away, but it's an invitation that, historically, tends to demonstrate a clear sign to most cats he's met.]

[taxusbacatta]

<sub>[Yellowfang bunches her muscles up, ready to flee as a something comes into view. She sees her own reflection in Wade's visor and squints as the sun glints off his armor.]

[This thing sure moves like a Twolegs and it speaks like one as well! Once again, in perfectly sensible cat words--or they would be perfectly sensible if they weren't so stupid.]

[Not wanting to be caught quailing again, Yellowfang arches her back and puffs up her tail.]</sub>

Yellowfang belongs to no one!

1/3

[counterblows]

2/3

[counterblows]

3/3

[counterblows]

[...come again?]

[Wash blinks, several times, in rapid succession, which is utterly wasted, considering that he has a helmet on, and tries to process the fact that the cat just fucking spoke back to him.]

Uh - you. Okay.

[He's hallucinating? Dreaming? He's got to be. This is...maybe not the weirdest thing he's ever seen, but it's up there, it is up there, and he's not entirely sure how he feels about it other than really fucking lost.]

You understand me. That's...okay.

ashore

[crosslaced]

[There’s an answering rustle from the bushes nearby, then the dead silence of another creature holding still…….

An equine head pokes its head through the leaves and whinnies.]

Belle, what-

[Ah, that’s very much a Twoleg voice, though the scent of horse overpowers most of all else. The human that bats the leaves aside stares with blue eyes and golden hair, gently pushing the horse head aside.]

[taxusbacatta]

<sub>[Yellowfang smells the steed before she sees it. Her eyes grow wide and she takes an impressive twisting hop away from the duo before she stops on a large tree root that was buckled up out of the earth.]

[She's heard of these creatures! Cows, she's sure...they didn't eat cats. But they belonged to Twolegs and sure enough, there was one astride it!]</sub>

Meow.

_{[She says this in plain English.]}

[crosslaced]

[Oh, it's a cat. Pointy-eared and furry-tailed, yes; definitely an Earth feline. This is the first cat he's seen, so is it someone's?

Either way Laurent moves merely to show himself, not going any closer to what is evidently a spooked creature. He crouches down, absolutely calm-

It just said ‘meow’???]

What?

Ashore

[forwearemany]

Poor Yellowfang must be having quite the day.

...Legion was also having a terrible time, so she's in good company, at least.

Now that things are calming down, the thoughts of their people and what they lost are becoming more and more prominent, more and more difficult to ignore. They need to find somewhere less humid, with less proximity to potentially corrosive saltwater, but their steps drag as they walk. Their people are gone. Their allies have abandoned them. They have no home to return to.

Their continued existence serves no purpose.

And yet, they cannot stop.

They almost don't notice the cat. When they do, they say nothing (or at least, nothing understandable), merely stop and chatter awkwardly. One of their headflaps raises.

[taxusbacatta]

Yellowfang was indeed having a day and a half! Talking Twolegs, the biggest lake ever in the history of the world, and, as her ears perk up and she turns to face the approaching tromping sound...Monsters.

In Yellowfang's world, Monsters were terrible stinking roaring beasts of shining metal and they screamed up and down the Thunderpath day in and day out but this day? This day the Monsters have strayed into the woods.

Poor Legion is met with a startled yowl as Yellowfang nearly hangs herself on the bush she had just freed herself from as she attempts to dart away.

[forwearemany]

Error. They are not a car.

Not that they know that's what she's thinking, so they can't correct the misconception.

Her yowling startles them as much as their presence startles her, and their headflaps flare out completely. They're not without compassion, however, and when she gets stuck, they will attempt to free her.

Carefully, they approach. They do not attempt to touch her, instead focusing on snapping the part of the bush she's caught on.

Then they see the word on her backpack. Their head tilts quizzically. A name? Will she recognize it?

"Yellowfang?" Perhaps they can attempt to calm her.

enso

[catpiper]

[Ren's privy to most of the feline whereabouts on this island, so color her surprised when her cat senses begin to tingle, the hiss reaches her ears and it sounds unfamiliar? It's not ESP kitty, who's at their nearby camp-not Murasaki-chan or Pachinko or any of the tigerlilies people had brought from the previous island.

Her eyes scan the brush and-

That's not a cat she knows. Its little backpack, the tint of their fur-it's new! She's new. And that excites her to no end, though she can see the poor thing is agitated, plain as day. She stays a few steps back, kneeling to the ground and keeping as still as she can. This girl is the last person on earth who would hurt a cat.]

It's okay, it's okay. You're safe by that tree.

[A roundabout way to comfort this kitty, but an attempt all the same, even if the cat's presence is what makes that tree safe to begin with. That's a special power those animals have and she's taking quiet solace in that fact as well-nothing bad will happen here.]

Are you hungry?

[taxusbacatta]

<sub>[Another Twoleg kit? Were Twoleg parents really so neglectful as to let them wander to and fro?]

[Ren's power of speech didn't surprise Yellowfang so much this time, but she did find that she was growing weary of the way the Twolegs on this island cooed at her as though she were a little kit or as though they didn't think she could understand them at all.]

[But Ren asked a question that Yellowfang hadn't really expected. She'd been plucked from the waves and untangled from branches, and here was another trying to feed her. Perhaps this was where Twolegs went when they were bad--to serve cats? No, that was a silly fantasy, something passed around and chuckled over in the Elder's den. She shook herself from her over-tired daydreams and sat down, giving Ren a good once-over.]

[Time to make a good impression. If she was learning anything from the patterns here, Ren was in for a surprise.]</sub>

Have you a mouse to spare for poor, old Yellowfang?

[catpiper]

[The thing about talking cats is Ren met one prior to arriving on the island-a forgotten ai that that found comfort in two kids hiding out in a building, and she knows talking cat here, one that takes the shape of a human, so Yellowfang's words only startle her for a second.

Mouse, mouse, mouse though-she doesn't have that in the assortment of trash on her back, though she pulls her bag around to sift through it in case a mouse randomly made its way in there. Nope. Garbage, garbage, can of cat food, garbage, garbage, pieces of leftover dinner from who knows when.

She sets both down on the ground in front of her. Choose your fate, kitty.]

I think the mice run away from me now, but I have these things. You can have both. They're very good.

Ashore

[demonpuppy]

It will be an (unfortunately?) familiar face that pokes through the bushes to see what the commotion is. From the hissing Chip had worried that one of the kittens had gotten loose and was in some sort of trouble, but instead--

"Talking cat!"

Re: Ashore

[taxusbacatta]

Yellowfang stopped shaking off and whipped her head around. A familiar face in this strange place and one she unfairly disliked. It wasn't Chip's fault they couldn't give her secret dream visions. At least, that's why she thinks she's cross with them. It's so hard to cling to that dream and the strange dream she had before the raft. With the hare. The big, big hare the color of a star.

But she's hot and cranky and still scared so she's going to take it out on them.

"Oh, you again. Shoo! Back to your nest!"

[demonpuppy]

They startle slightly, and frown, but--well, she hadn't been friendly before, either. But still--

"I don't have to yet, it's not night. And we call them houses."

Chip doesn't move closer, but they do kneel down to try and be less intimidating. "I, uh...I'm sorry I didn't really help before."

jungle time!!

[bitch4bitch]

...Oh. Huh.

Well, this was, at least, not the first regular-ass domestic cat Erika had seen here. But it was definitely older than the kittens, and, uh. A lot more fucked-up? Jeez, what happened to this cat.

Erika frowned and squatted down a couple feet away from Yellowfang, setting her own pack down next to her while she examined this whole situation.

...Like the. Backpack part of this situation.

"...Shit. Where'd you get that?"

[taxusbacatta]

Would Yellowfang ever get where she was going? Tune in next week to find out!

When Erika approached and proceded to pop a squat like so many Twolegs had before, Yellowfang noticed something and instantly set her ears backwards. There was a smell lingering on Erika, a smell something like a fox but worse. But why?

"It is mine," Yellowfang meowed firmly.

Enso

[notglitching]

While the tempo of the approaching steps sounds human, these paces are quieter than most—and accompanied by something else. A low rumble, as if the growl of a predator were mixed with a malfunctioning machine. Whatever Yellowfang might make of it, one other oddity will make itself quickly apparent.

The creature drawing closer emits no smell at all.

For his own part, Rinzler has no trouble identifying the low hiss. Cats are a known class of user-creature, and one with a particularly useful function: disposing of bugs and other threats in user-systems. This one, he suspects, will have its work cut out for it.

The backpack is... strange, though. The enforcer pauses at the edge of the clearing, helmet slanting curiously to one side.

[taxusbacatta]

That scentlessness would be what caused Yellowfang to hesitate as soon as she caught sight of Rinzler. Another upright Monster! Shining beetle shell and terrible grinding joints but...where was the stink of metal? Of gasoline?

Rinzler did not even carry the smell of prey he VERY OBVIOUSLY consumed on a regular basis.

Yellowfang found herself paused, back arched, as she stared down this strange being. No smell. It had no smell. It could only mean...

"Speak, spirit! Say your piece!"